Outside the UN building on Manhattan in New York an estimated 20.000 people had gathered to protest for very different reasons.
There were widespread protests against the participation at the UN meetings by Libya's Muammar Al-Qaddafi (Qaddafi), leader of The Socialist People's Party Arab Jamahiriya. One group was there to protest against Qaddafi's presence and to ask for the release of Sayed Musa Al-Sadr from prison, who was kidnapped during a visit to Libya in 1978 and imprisoned, and who many view as the Gandhi of the Middle East. Another group called Nation of Islam leans on orthodox Islam, that from 2005 established so-called hate groups, welcomed Qaddafi to the UN.
Another group protested against the participation by the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad at the assembly, because he ’has blood on his hands’ and the lives of many Iranian people on his conscience.